Village Square low-income housing project gets kick start

July 1, 2012|By Maria Herrera, Sun Sentinel

DELRAY BEACH — Village Square, an affordable-housing project in the heart of the city's Southwest neighborhood, is a step closer to becoming a reality after years of being stalled because of lack of funding.

Village Square is a proposed project that features senior housing, affordable rentals and market-priced, single-family homes on 11 acres that once housed the Carver Estates public housing project on Southwest 12th Avenue.

The city approved plans for the 254-unit project Wednesday which includes 84 rental apartments for low-income seniors, 144 rental apartments for low-income families and 24 single-family homes for sale.

"We got it all," said Dorothy Ellington, president of the Delray Beach Housing Authority, of funding for the first two phases and city approvals for the project. "This is great not only for people in need of affordable housing but for the entire neighborhood."

City officials say the project has the potential to revitalize an area the city has invested millions in redeveloping.

"The CRA is supporting this project because is going to satisfy the demand for different types of affordable housing," said Elizabeth Burrows, Grants and Programs Manager for the CRA. "It will ultimately help with neighborhood stabilization."

The authority says it has 1,000 families on its Section 8 voucher waiting list and that affordable housing is needed more than ever.

In October, the authority opened the waiting list and received more than 6,000 applications. Ellington said a computerized lottery system picked about 1,000 random applications and added them to the waiting list.

"I don't know if I qualify but I would be interested in looking into it," said Rosalie Brown, who rents a duplex in the area but does not use Section 8 vouchers. "It will be nice to see newer apartments around here for the folks who need it."

The project will be paid for with $2.7 million from the Delray Beach Community Redevelopment Agency, $5.9 million in Florida Tax Exempt bond financing, and tax credits administered by the Florida Housing Finance Corporation.

The project was originally conceived in 2007 as part of a partnership with local developer The Auburn Group to build 950 apartments, condominiums and townhouses that would have replaced Carver Estates and the adjacent Auburn Trace rental complex.

But in 2010, the two parties broke off the agreement over differences and the Auburn Group went on to build Villages at Delray, an affordable rental project built adjacent to the 11 acres the authority owns.

After the split, the authority had applied for several grants to build the senior housing portion of the plan with no success. Last year, he CRA agreed to lend the project the $2.7 million.

Burrows said the property would go back to the tax rolls, contributing an estimated $155,500 in property taxes each year.

Families earning less than $29,847 will be eligible to live in the family rental units.